


The Blade Shroud

by Davechicken



Series: The Pilot and his Broken Saber [9]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6861979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo's trying to find balance, when something sets his gyroscope spinning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blade Shroud

**Author's Note:**

  * For [resistanceflyboy (kherezae)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kherezae/gifts).



Kylo has been avoiding Luke. A little. Okay… more than a little. It’s difficult, because of a whole host of reasons. One: then-Ben killed and destroyed Luke’s new Academy, and Kylo feels very guilty about that. Two: Luke had not helped him, and he Kylo feels very annoyed about that. Three: Kylo had then…

…okay, it was really just a complicated mess of broken lines of communication, failed potential, unhappy times and current regrets. 

Kylo knew on some level that he’d never atone for what he did: the deaths on his hands (the other Jedi, his father, and the countless scores of Snoke’s enemies) would never be brought back, even if he could have helped them kill Snoke when they tried. He knew that. 

It wasn’t why he’d tried to kill him. He hadn’t attempted to switch sides and betray his then-Master out of some karmic payback, because he didn’t think it worked like that. He’d tried to kill him because he’d wanted him dead for years, and he’d been too afraid, too weak to do so. 

Then along came Luke Skywalker - saviour of all, of old - and the girl who he knew had so much potential… and Kylo had thought that, maybe… maybe this time. Not for himself, or maybe for himself. Kill Snoke to free his mind, but also free the galaxy from what he **knew** to be wrong. 

And Luke had… failed. Or Kylo had. Or all three of them had. Snoke had survived the attack, and Kylo had barely escaped with his heart still beating. His Force-sensitivity had been left behind, his sense of self and strength, and he’d resented Luke all the way back to his mother’s waiting arms.

He’d let Leia hold him, but he hadn’t felt right there, not for the longest of times. He’d let her talk to him, and he’d responded in kind, but it had been with half of himself still _there_ , still in Snoke’s thrall. And - and - 

It just - 

The uncle who had once seemed so unflappable, so calm, so serene and wonderful. The man he’d looked up to - physically, and metaphorically - as so brave and knowing… Kylo looks to him, now.

He’s shrunk, a little. Not much, but a little. Even without Kylo growing up and up and towering over him, Luke Skywalker carries years on his shoulders. His blue eyes are more than they had been, or Kylo can read more into them. Their gaze meets, and Kylo feels his own sadness at the same time as he feels his uncle’s. Both of them had failed the other, and the anger-regret is there on both sides of the fence. Kylo, for his pain he’d not been saved from, and for the injury he’d inflicted. Luke, for the betrayal, but also for not being able to save him. 

Kylo - Ben - had known Chewie better, back then. Luke had often been away, even more frequently than his parents or his Wookie-uncle. Ben had always thought of Luke as - yes - uncle, but more than that… Jedi. Now he wonders if people think of him like that. Not… _Jedi_. But if they see the Force as a barrier, as a thing between him and them. Between him and any connection. He wonders a lot of things.

Luke waits for him to speak first, and Kylo doesn’t know if it’s because of some Jedi Distance, or if it’s because of a Human, flawed, awkwardness. He… empathises, better, now. Sees _Luke_ , not just **Master Skywalker**. 

“I’m sorry,” Kylo starts the new conversation, not even sure what the last conversation they really had _was_.  


“So am I.” Luke’s smile is sad, but not entirely without hope. “Do you think we can both start again?”  


“…yes. Yes. Please… I would like to.”  


***

Kylo can’t find calm the way Luke can. Not really. They sit and talk about what Kylo struggles with, and what he thinks he needs help with. Luke doesn’t offer any solutions, insists he won’t even try, not until he’s thought about what Kylo’s asked.

Which is - well. Both frustrating and relieving. He’s spent all his life with these problems, so it makes sense that there isn’t a single saber-wave and they go away. He’s also honest. Terrifyingly honest. He tells Luke about the things that make it hard for him to keep his behaviour in check (the things that set his emotional core into free-fall, the things that make him afraid or angry), and the methods he’s tried and failed to use.

Luke listens, and Kylo pours out more and more. He tells him about the fear he feels when he goes inside his own mind at times, or the memories associated with that. How there’d been the trickle of evil in his ear, and how he’d sought chaos and emotional noise from others instead of face the inner lack of serenity. He tells him about the way the Dark feels bad at times, but not at others, and how he’s not sure if he can have the non-bad without the bad. How the Light feels the same, sometimes. How it’s a mess in his head, and how he can’t - for the life of him - stop _feeling._

By the time he’s done, Kylo feels like a weight has lifted off his chest. Fears he’d harboured in the dark, the _world-dark_ , not the Force-Dark. He’d been too ashamed to talk about his problems back then, choked by the unseen hand. He hadn’t wanted to admit they _were_ problems, even though he had known they were. He’d thought denial would keep him safe: if you didn’t confess it was an issue, you could pretend it wasn’t there. A childish method, but - well. He’d been a child.

And now, now he’s told Luke. Now, even if Luke can’t _fix_ things, or give him answers, he at least knows what Kylo’s struggling with.

A hand on his wrist, a soft, sad smile. “I think you’re labouring under the delusion that I have those things answered, that I have things completely under control,” his uncle tells him.

“You have them more under control than I do.”  


“Than you _did_. But I’m being serious, Kylo. It’s not about not having problems, or being entirely at peace, at ease, at… ‘one’. It’s not about never feeling tempted, it’s about… fighting for the best answer, the best action, the most… _good_ solution. And if sometimes the good solution is muddy, or confused… then that’s the one we go with.”  


Kylo nods. “Okay.”

“We’ll find it. Or… as much of it as we can. Ben - Ben _Kenobi_ \- used techniques that were ‘Dark’, you know. But he used them for the good reasons. And he lied to me, in a way. He lied to try to protect me, but he still lied.”  


“Yes, I… suppose it’s not as… ah. Black and white as I–”   


“Ben? Kylo?”  


He barely even registers the use of either of his names, so frozen by a sudden, bone-deep sense of _chill_. Like something that was right inside is now unhooked, unhitched. Like all his blood replaced with a cooler liquid, his brain skidding at the lack of backing music to his holo. He’s sitting, and his whole body lurches _sideways_ out of the chair, like down changed direction, and his mouth works over empty air.

“ _Kylo_?”  


Kylo looks up, trying to focus on Luke’s face. It’s there, but it’s like he can’t really understand it. Half of everything is wrong, half of the galaxy. Half of _him_. “He has Poe. Snoke… he’s got _Poe_.”

***

There’s frantic calls and messages and blipping comms and Kylo sits through it all. Activity goes on over his head. People amass, and swarm, and eventually it comes down to a core of people: Luke, Leia, Rey, Finn, R2, Threepio, Chewie, Snap. There’s been others, but those have gone. Lots of mission status reports, technical tracking data, hurried checks and re-checks and counter-checks.

They don’t _need_ them, but they insist on doing them. Kylo knows what he knows better than he can remember knowing much of anything. He can feel the distant anguish, the distress that Poe’s in. He can’t tell specifics (the distance just fills him with a foreboding so intense he wants to hurl over his boots), but enough to know it isn’t _working_.

Whatever it is. Existence, maybe. Poe is in pain, and Kylo can feel it all the way through his core. He wishes he could tell _where_ he was, because he’d fly right up there and punch out anyone who stood in his way. Possibly with his bare fists, if he’s honest. He’d kill every last person that stood in his way, because _Poe is in pain_ and Kylo knows - **knows** \- he’d give almost anything to get him back.

 _Almost anything_. The question there, implied.

 _What is too much for Poe Dameron?_ Would he kill people for Snoke, if Snoke would definitely give him Poe back? (And would Poe even still love him, in that case?) Would he kill… anyone in this room? The thought surges up, and he tries to exclude it, but that’s the point.

Snoke knows all too well how to push his buttons, how to cause pain in him. Snoke has seen the inside of Kylo’s head, has known him more intimately than anyone else alive. Maybe he even knows him better than Poe does, because for all the pilot saw him kill, torture, and… well, what was worse than that? Little. Even though he saw that, he saw only a snapshot, only a brief slice of his past. Snoke had known him from the day he was born, and he knew the depths to which he’d plunged intimately. He knew, because he’d pushed and held him into them.

So what did the Leader want, now? What was this in aid of? Was he to use Poe as a bargaining tool, to offer him back, to ask for something? A hostage exchange? A ‘throw the Resistance under the speederbike or he dies’? What? There’s no ransom demand, of course. Doesn’t need to be. 

Kylo knows anything that was sent to them would be rejected, or at least interrogated a thousand times by the data-operatives, the word-techs, the wheels of warcraft. Poe doesn’t have time for all of that. Poe could be dying, right now. The distress is a constant shrill sound in his mind, and he can’t seem to get through to him. Snoke’s probably controlling it, letting the pilot’s distress _out_ , and nothing **in**. It hurts so bad to know it’s happening and it’s his fault. Snoke would never have stolen Poe if it wasn’t for–

“Ky?”   


His head jerks up at the shortened version of his name. Only Poe calls him that, and then he sees the owner of the voice isn’t his curly-mopped lover, but the man’s best friend. _Snap_. Snap. Kylo blinks slowly at him, confusion making focussing hard work.

“Ky… stay with us, okay? We’re going to get him back.”  


He nods, numb. You’re supposed to.

Apparently Snap isn’t convinced, because he goes away and someone else comes back. It’s Leia, this time. His mother sits opposite him, a hand out to touch his knee.

“Kylo. Kylo… can you hear me?”  


He can, though _hearing_ and **understanding** are two different things. He turns his eyes to her face, half-seeing it. “Yes.”

“Tell me what’s happening?”  


“To… Poe?”  


“To both of you.” The hand rubs slow, warm circles of reassurance that do nothing to help. If anything, he’s irritated by the idea that anyone could think it would.   


“He’s… hurting. I can’t get to him. I… I can feel him in pain, but I can’t… help. He can’t hear me… it’s Snoke. I don’t know how he’s done it, but he…” Kylo wants to scream, but he also feels almost nothing at all. Both at once. It’s like it’s so much that there’s - that - it disconnects. That the pain is **so much, so great** that his heart can’t hold it, and also that he wants to slice through walls in an attempt to make - to -   


“Kylo… can… can I hold you?”  


He isn’t sure why she’s asking, but then he realises he has a tight grip of his saber, has it in his right hand. It’s shaking, and he’s shaking, and the angerfearhate is so strong in his chest, so loud, so… “D-do you think it’s a g-good idea to…”

She can’t hold herself back, then, and he feels her arms around him. She still feels huge when she does it, and he feels tiny, and he shudders into her chest, pain bright and loud in his core. There’s a roar from Chewie, protesting Snoke, and Kylo snorts quietly. 

Leia Organa, General of the Resistance, war hero… _mother…_ holds him, and he lets go of the saber, eventually. Curls his arms around her, and rocks them both in his anguish. It hurts so badly, and he doesn’t know–

“Don’t let Snoke win,” Leia murmurs, by his ear. “You know he wants to hurt you, and you should know that taking Poe means he knows he’s lost _you_.”  


“And got **Poe**.”  


“We’ll get him back, Kylo. We’ll get Poe back.”  


“What if he - what–”  


Another hand, and he realises this one is Luke’s. Metallic, but still him. He shudders under the sudden protection from both of them, the soft reassurance they try to radiate into him. He looks up and he wonders what it would have been like, so many years ago? Would it have kept Snoke out, then? 

“He wants to see if he can break me,” Kylo says, suddenly. “Wants to know what I’ll do - how - how _Dark_ I will go - to save Poe.”  


“Probably quite a lot,” Luke says. “I ran away from Master Yoda to save your parents.”  


He flickers his eyes up, meeting Luke’s. “I might do worse.”

“Would you, if we said we’d help you?” Luke counters. “If we give you alternatives? If you discuss with us, and we do our level best to get the right ending?”  


“But I _could_ do those bad things.” Why don’t they get it?  


“So choose not to,” Leia adds. “Make the choice. Being tempted isn’t evil. Having thoughts isn’t evil. _Acting_ on them is. You have options, possibilities, now. You have all of us prepared to help you save him. Take advantage of that, and remember… you are _not_ his puppet, Kylo. You’re your own man.”  


“Then how do I do this?”  


“Come make a plan with us,” Leia suggests, and tugs an arm around him, trying to get him to his feet. “If we all work together, we might just make it.”  


***

It turns out the _Falcon_ is the best ship for the job. Of course she is: fastest ship in the galaxy. Kylo hasn’t flown on her, not in… in years. It feels weird to be there, and for Han not to be.

He’d have flown her to save Poe, Kylo knows that. He’d be here, if it wasn’t for him. Every day without him is an agony, doubled over because the lack is self-inflicted. Of all the things he’s done, that and the Jedi… those… weigh hardest on him. And he wonders if it makes him selfish and pathetic to regret those the most, or if it just makes him ‘normal’. Faceless deaths don’t resonate as deeply, and Han’s was anything but f– but faceless– and–

_Poe. Poe’s there. On the bridge, watching. Kylo can feel the memory, feel the external eyes on his mental recreation, and it stings like–_

They’re on Kylo Duty. They laughed and said they weren’t, to begin with, but Snap cracks under Kylo’s eyebrows, and admits they are keeping an eye on him. 

“Not,” the pilot adds, “…to stop you doing stuff, but so you know you’re not alone, so you got someone to talk to.”  


Talk to and say what, precisely?

“Look, I know we don’t really know one another…” Snap fusses at his holster strap. “But I know how much you care about Poe, and how much he cares about you. Force knows, you’re often all he talks about. Never known him obsessed like this…”  


“I didn’t mean to get him into danger.”  


“No! I know you didn’t. Maker, I know! You’re as upset as all of us, more, even. I know this wasn’t planned. But we all want him safe, okay? And I - look. You look sad, and maybe it’s none of my business, but if you want to talk to someone who’s probably more impartial…”  


“You’re Poe’s best friend.”  


“And I know damn skippy about the Force. I’m serious. I don’t. I know what everyone knows, which is rumours and scraps of things. I really don’t know how I’d know if you were in my head or not, right now…”  


“Depending on if I wanted you to know or not, you wouldn’t, necessarily.”  


“But you’re not?”  


Kylo shakes his head. “No need. No desire to. I… only really do it if I need to. And even then, it’s… usually to make things go faster. I would read people, when they were prisoners. It was quicker, easier, and less painful than other methods of interrogation. Also more effective.”

“You did that to Poe, right?”  


A slower nod. “For the map.”

“When… is it okay if I ask you stuff?”  


Kylo looks over at him. He realises that - other than the little talk he gave to Poe’s friends, one of whom was Snap - most people never actually do get to talk to a Force-sensitive, especially one who has used both Light and Dark. “You can. If you understand I will answer honestly, and it may not be nice to hear.”

“If I ask something rude, just… tell me to stow it? Pilots tend to lack a bit of the filter others have.”  


Kylo smiles. “I had noticed.”

“So. You’d use it to get information. When else would you? I mean… if that’s–”  


“No, it’s fine to ask. I personally didn’t want to do it without there being a reason. I’d stop a trigger finger. I’d pull an answer. I’d stop someone in their tracks. I… suppose I felt using it for the sake of it was cheapening it, somehow. I’m already more powerful than most people. Why would I want to reduce everyone around me into… puppets?”  


Snap nods. “Makes sense. So. How did you normally use the Force?”

“…within the Order? For… interrogation. To keep myself safe in combat. Occasionally to impress upon people the reality of their situation. To hone my abilities, to spar…”  


“Never for fun?”  


“What… possible use could I have of it, for ‘fun’? It’s… just like your ability to see, or hear.”  


“Yeah, but… we sing for fun. So don’t you… you know. Ever float stuff because you can? Or to get to it faster? Or…”  


“…no?” Kylo wonders why he hasn’t, but he hasn’t. Not since… not since he was Ben, anyway. He’s never truly felt comfortable with the Force, for all it’s a second nature. It was always something Big and Important, something supposedly so Serious and not something to use frivolously. Either it was there to protect the galaxy, or it was there to ruin it.   


“Humour me?” Snap clasps his hands together. “And maybe it will help distract you.”  


“I… don’t see how it can help.”  


“Because you’ve never done it, have you? I mean: not really. I bet the First Order weren’t big on friends and stuff. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.”  


“…the First Order were not big on a lot of things.” But did Snap really consider him a friend? They had hardly interacted. A few polite greetings over meals. Kylo realises he hadn’t socialised with anyone, much, since getting on base. He didn’t even know how you did it. He had, once, but he suspected the strategies of a nine year old would no longer work, now.  


“Okay. What… was it like, then, over there?”  


“Lonely.” He is embarrassed to admit that. “I… how much do you know? Of my… life?”  


“Not much. Poe’s told me bits. Said you used to be friends.”  


“We did, before I left to train under my uncle. I was ten, then. And I was already… troubled. It was five years before I left.”  


“…frak, you were still a kid?”  


Kylo nods. “Yes. I was fifteen. And the Leader mostly had me working on training. Alone, and with my Knights. I had… more autonomy than the Stormtroopers did, but not much. I suppose by the end I could do almost anything I wanted, but it never occurred to me. I… went where I was told to go. I did what I was told to do. I… sometimes read. Not often. Sometimes I would watch a holo. I did not… have… ah. Hobbies? Or anything. I was… a soldier, primarily. And nothing more.”

Snap’s eyes widen. “And the Troopers had it worse, still? No wonder Finn loves hanging around with us.”

“They would be summarily reconditioned if they showed too much individuality,” Kylo explains. “Wiped, set going from scratch. Between the General’s rules, and the Leader’s… fanatic Darkness… it was unpleasant. But you did not think about running for long, because if you did, you would find yourself beaten down harder, until running was never thought of, except in your dreams.”  


“Okay, I hated him before, but now…”  


Kylo feels a wash of fresh agony rush through him, and frustrated impotence swells in his chest. Poe is in pain again, and Kylo wants to lash out so badly. It’s horrible, and then there’s hands on his wrists, keeping them from moving.

“Kylo… buddy. Stay with me. It’s Poe, isn’t it? He’s hurting Poe.”  


“I can’t _help him_ ,” he says, anguish clear in his tone. “Snap… he’s hurting him because of me. This is all because I left him.”  


“Which you **needed to do**. Look at me? Look at me. Poe wants you with us, wants you safe. We all want you safe. Understand? We know - we kind of know - now. We know you were being used by him, like those troopers, okay? We know, and we’re gonna help you take him down.”  


Kylo wants him off, suddenly, doesn’t want the contact. He starts to thrash, to shove, to pull his hands free. “ _Don’t touch me!”_

“Okay…” hands back, up, backing away. “I won’t. But I’m here. And you did the right thing in running away. No matter what else, you made that choice, Kylo. And Poe wouldn’t want you not to, just to keep himself safe. And he wouldn’t have got _with_ you, if he didn’t want every risk in the galaxy. He’s that kind of guy. So you don’t get to blame yourself for what’s happening to him.”  


“It’s _my fault_.”  


“Did you kidnap him? Or give him over?”  


“How could you _think that_?” He’s horrified by the very idea.  


“Then it’s not your fault. Listen: we know the risks. Of our job, of our calling. Poe knows the risks. He _chose_ to be with you, Kylo. For whatever reasons, he loves you, and he thinks you’re worth it.”  


“I’m not worth **this**.” A snort, one that tickles on the way out. He isn’t worth the pain he can feel Poe is in, not one drop of it.   


“That’s his decision, not yours,” Snap corrects him, firmly. “You are not to blame, that’s the Darkside bastard in your head. You - you are _so_ not to blame. And we’ll get Poe back, and you’ll see.”  


“He wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for me!”  


Snap grabs his shoulder, even with the injunction from before. “We pick our battles, Kylo. We see the things we want, and we know the risks, and we _take them_. You knew the risks you faced, betraying Snoke. You knew the goals. You made that choice, and _so has Poe_. If you care for him at _all_ , you’ll let him make his own mind up about how much you’re worth. You hear me?”

He does. He thinks he does. He shoots sad eyes up at him, begging for a change in reality. “I wish it was me, not him. I wish it was me he was torturing. I’ve - it’s - I–”

He knows what it feels like, first hand. Once, he thought he’d never know anything worse, but now he’s aware there is worse: It happening to someone he cares about. 

“We’re getting him back, Kylo. We’re getting him back.”  


He hopes so. He’s not sure how much longer either of them can hold on for. 


End file.
